Occupational Hazard

Occupational Safety and Health Administration, more commonly referred to as OSHA. Their mission is to prevent injuries and protect the health of America's workers by ensuring safe and healthful workplaces. Oh what fun they would have with mag crew!

Heat stroke, severe sunburn, infected insect bites, blisters on your feet the size of golf balls,complications from prolonged dehydration, mixed in with poor nutrition. Not something you would expect to deal with on a daily basis, or even a rare occasion. One would think there is an easy fix to these problems. Buy insect repellent, wear orthopedic shoes, get a reusable water bottle,use sunscreen, make better food choices. These are wonderful preventative measures, but they have one thing in common. They all cost money. If you had to choose between soothing a sunburn or eating,what would your choice be? If you had to make a decision to prevent your body from completely shutting down from lack of nutrients or wearing comfortable shoes, what would it be? And really, there is no such thing as a 'healthy' choice at a fast food joint.

Most of these kids don't even realize there is an option, seeing as everything that goes wrong is always one hundred percent their fault. They are told that these painful inconveniences are supposed to build character. You have blisters because you obviously don't know how to sweet talk the Jones into inviting you inside to sit down. You have a sunburn because you're spending too much time slacking and not enough time inside with the Jones. You passed out in the middle of the sidewalk because you don't know how to use the Jones to your advantage.

On the rare occasion management decides that your injuries are severe enough to seek the care of a licensed medical professional, you are allowed to go to the hospital. Only after you have completed a full, twelve hour day of work. Anyone who knows anything about hospital emergency rooms (and how they treat you once they realize you are destitute) can appreciate the stinging slap in the face of this situation. In the eyes of a crew kid, its almost better to just let your injuries fester. Pain and suffering versus time and money wasted.

Once management has deemed you invalid, a car handler will drive you to the ER when the day is done, and orders are checked in. Sometime around eleven thirty at night. Once you arrive, you have to fill out paper work and wait to be seen. This can take anywhere from thirty minuets to a couple of hours, putting the time roughly at one o'clock in the morning. Once you are seen, you are questioned about how you obtained these injuries. You then receive a lecture about how if you had taken the above mentioned preventative steps, this wouldn't have happened. Next, you are usually given a band aid or some extra strength Tylenol(with Codeine, yum!) and sent on your way. By this time its close to three o'clock in the morning. In order to get back to the hotel, you have to call a cab. Cabs, you guessed it, cost money! God forbid management give up some of their beauty sleep, or cut a random one night stand short to do you a favor. Those local girls aren't going to impregnate themselves, you know. The cab takes about fifteen to twenty minuets to pick you up and you spend about another fifteen to twenty in transit. This costs you close to sixty percent of your twenty dollar draw. Its now close to four o'clock in the morning. Fortunately for you, you get to sleep for a whopping three and a half hours before you have to wake up and spend another day pounding the pavement and irritating your injuries further.

Does that sound worth it? It almost isn't.

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